LeConte RV Park in Gatlinburg

About 55 years ago, my grandparents first brought me to Gatlinburg. I remember the lovely stone and timber shops, the enormous porch on the grand lodge, and the Arrowcraft shop featuring the work of local craftsmen. I returned again for other visits with my parents, and as an adult since my late 20s, I have enjoyed classes at the Arrowmont Craft School.

Arrowmont was one of the many settlement schools started as mission work in Appalachia at the beginning of the 1900s. The Pi Beta Phi college sorority, of which my mother was a member, brought the first public health nurse and the first regular school to Gatlinburg. In addition to teaching children, the school also helped turn local handcrafts into highly marketable products by helping the local men and women preserve and develop their skills. I still have a beautifully handwoven pin holder of my grandmother's from the Arrowcraft shop. The Arrowmont School is now a school of fine handcraft affiliated with the University of Tennessee. It is no longer run by the Pi Beta Phis, a recent development, and the Arrowcraft shop, a staple of my many visits to Gatlinburg, was being dismantled and moved the weekend I attended my most recent class this past April. Arrowcraft Industries has become the Southern Highland Handcraft Guild centered at the Folk Art Center in Asheville just off the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Lots has changed since my first visit as a small child. The traffic is unbearable, the lodge is gone, and the lovely old stone and timber shops are buried beneath signs hawking tourist trash or simply torn down to make room for arcades and novelty stores. Arrowmont remains, however, a lovely enclave just a few steps off the main thoroughfare. In the past, I have stayed on campus, enjoying their charming dorms and wonderful food. This time, however, I brought both young'uns with me and we camped surprisingly close to town at the very comfortable LeConte RV Park. They left me off in the mornings for my weekend Marbling class and took off for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the riotous Pigeon Forge, home of Dollywood and many outlet stores. I confess an ulterior motive in bringing them--I'm building confidence in using the trailer so I can come next time by my self.

The tools for marbling are pretty simple--a tank, thickener, acrylic paints and bundles of broomstraw. The effects are stunning, though practice is required. We started marbling paper but the goal was to marble silk scarves. I have taken several shibori classes and dye silk scarves which I sell, when I have the time to make them, but marbling is something I have always wanted to learn. This was the first class I had seen that focused on fabric rather than paper and I was thrilled.

The instructor was excellent and the Arrowmont experience overall is always good, but it was just a weekend class and it passed in a blur. The kids were patient with me and we ended each day with a sunset ride on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, an incredibly beautiful drive. Because we rode at dusk we were pretty much alone with stunning sunsets and rich, deep woods.

I did get some lovely samples and as soon as I can catch my breath, I have all the materials I need to set up at home. But the best part of the weekend was enjoying each other. This little trailer is opening opportunities for us to be close to nature and close to each other.